Saturday, November 02, 2024

Werner Herzog --March 1996 - left my darkroom print - right my inkjet print after scanning

 Darkroom print where I used a colour head on my enlarger and printed it partly with a yellow setting (for shadow detail) and then with magenta (for contrast). On the eyes I used potassium ferrocyanide to bleach and bring out the detail of the eyes. Note the non archival nature of Ilford Multigrade plastic coated paper.

 

 While my photographic career blossomed and prospered in that 20^th century I have adopted many of the photographic advances of the 21^st.

I became a good darkroom printer of b+w and colour negatives and even learned to transform my Kodachromes and Ektachromes into Cybachrome prints.

The bête noir of printing in a darkroom was to show shadow detail. Even Ansel Adams with his zone system could not extract all that information in the shadows of his negatives.

In that century with Cybachromes prints having a lot of contrast which was enhanced by their extreme glossy look the only other alternative was to convert slides into internegatives then have them printed as colour prints. This method was not entirely sharp and we all knew that few colour prints were archival.

The solution to all the above happened by the end of the 20^th century when scanners came into the picture. Scanners (my Epson Perfection V700 Photo) are able to extract all that shadow detail. My 20-year-old Photoshop 8 has a most useful tool that brings out not only the shadow detail of negatives, slides and prints but also the hidden shadow detail that modern digital cameras are designed to curtail as people now want contrasty and sharp photographs.

When inkjet printing was introduced, photography was still being discussed as not being art. Those that printed inkjets attempted to rename these prints as giclées. Few ever figured out that in this French term translated to spray had a slang term that equated it to male ejaculation.

Those who know about photography in that past century might know that Ansel Adams used to sign the back of his photographs with pencil. This meant that he had printed them.

In that other century some photographers (and this one) would file our enlarger negative carrier. This resulted in what is now called a crazy border. The crazy border confirmed two facts. One was that the photographer had not cropped the negative and had not cropped the image in camera. It also meant that the photographer had printed the photograph and not a lab.

As a graphic example of all the above is March 1996 portrait of Werner Herzog. I used my Mamiya RB-67 Pro-SD loaded with Ilford FP-4 Plus. I used two lights. One was for the background and the other was a light high up ensconced in a grid which narrowed the light. The negative produced was in high contrast.

On the left of my example here the best I could do in my darkroom hides most of the information (which was there!) in the shadows. Compare that with the scanned negative and printed inkjet on the

People might say that the photograph on the right is not realistic. But with my human eyes I saw those details as our eyes can go from black to white with those middle greys with no problem.

I believe that inkjet prints should not be given the respect they deserve as well as those who print them.

Friday, November 01, 2024

 

1 November 2024

 

The Hydrangea - gray0328

 

In spring’s first breath, last year’s bones 

Bloom forth with life, a memory rooted deep 

Old wood, worn yet strong, births colors anew 

Echoes of time, held fast in the flower’s heart

 

But when summer’s hand turns the world to flame 

Fresh stems rise, tender and unscarred, reaching 

New wood carries tomorrow in its veins 

A second flush, not bound by yesterday

 

Two lives converge within one tender bloom 

Old and new embrace, the seasons dance

 

Turning off the lights in the evening in these rainy and dark days makes me think, invariably, about my Rosemary. I find it almost impossible to find a reason to keep going.

I am saved by writing about it.

Last night I knew that this morning I would grab that double portrait of Rosemary and that I would bend it to make sure it had a visible crease. That crease cannot be removed. It is simply there, permanently for as long as the photograph exists.

Many of Rosemary’s and my roses are remontant. This means that once they bloom around June they bloom again. If I divide my hostas they sometimes revert to juvenility and their leaves might emerge smaller and narrower.

Imagine if humans could revert to juvenility and and get a second chance and be remontant?

As my garden fades into fall and the roses drop their leaves and hydrangea flowers lose their colour (but look beautiful in spite of it like in this scan) there is that hope, often realized, that come spring they will be back to greet me.

Alas, my Rosemary is not remontant and she is not coming back. And that keeps we awake at night as I scroll in my mind all those wonderful moments we had in our 52-year marriage.

 

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Peter Trower - Poet & Rosa 'A Shropshire Lad' 31 October 2024

 

When Summer’s End I Nighing A.E. Houseman

When summer's end is nighing

    And skies at evening cloud,

    I muse on change and fortune

    And all the feats I vowed

    When I was young and proud.

 

    The weathercock at sunset

    Would lose the slanted ray,

    And I would climb the beacon

    That looked to Wales away

    And saw the last of day.

 

    From hill and cloud and heaven

    The hues of evening died;

    Night welled through lane and hollow

    And hushed the countryside,

    But I had youth and pride.

 

    And I with earth and nightfall

    In converse high would stand,

    Late, till the west was ashen

    And darkness hard at hand,

    And the eye lost the land.

 

    The year might age, and cloudy

    The lessening day might close,

    But air of other summers

    Breathed from beyond the snows,

    And I had hope of those.

 

    They came and were and are not

    And come no more anew;

    And all the years and seasons

    That ever can ensue

    Must now be worse and few.

 

    So here's an end of roaming

    On eves when autumn nighs:

    The ear too fondly listens

    For summer's parting sighs,

    And then the heart replies.

 

This time of the year for me is less about Halloween and more about 2 November and All Souls’ Day. Because I am 82 most of my friends and many in my family are all gone.

Today 31 October I happened to go to my back lane and there I found the English Rose, Rosa ‘A Shropshire Lad’ was in bloom. Not only that it had plenty of pristine new red leaves which is a particular added quality of this rose which may be the best in my garden.

I looked at the two blooms and immediately thought of a poet. He was called the logging poet. He was Peter Trower.

I remember Malcolm Parry, editor of Vancouver Magazine, looking at me with a smile in his office and then throwing phone books on the floor. “Alex, underneath is Western Living’s art director Chris Dahl. It is a magazine that features photographs of pristine bathrooms without people.”

A few months later Malcolm Parry became the new editor of Western Living. One of his first intrusions into eliminating those empty bathrooms was by hiring Peter Trower to write for the magazine.

In the 80s and early 90s a group of artists, photographers, poets, writers, designers, editors, hoods, strippers, etc would meet for lunch every Thursday at the Railway Club. One of the regulars was Pete (as we called Peter Trower). This lovely man taught me to appreciate his favourite poet which was A.E. Houseman. Trower could recite from memory from Houseman’s A Shropshire Lad.

I remember that man, in loving memory and I dedicate this blog to him. It is impossible for me to ever look at a bloom of this rose without remembering him.